The revolution, indeed, came at a moment of Mexico’s saturation with prosperity. And it has continued by the continuation of that prosperity, which has furnished and still furnishes the fuel of banditry and revolution. It was not until after Diaz fell that the great wealth of Mexican oil became patent. And not until Carranza began imposing his taxes on the oil industry do we find the upsurgence of the ideas of socialism, bolshevism and nationalization which have been the battlecries of all the governments which have followed him. Oil, as we have seen, has furnished the sinews of war, and continues to furnish them, despite all that can be done to turn the tide. In the days of the revolutions previous to Diaz the rewards of success were governorships, sometimes presidencies, and always some brief spell of peace. But to-day the reward is too vast, the graft quite too colossal, to slow down the round of struggle. Wealth pours into the national capital in amounts which would be quite hopeless of comprehension to the revolutionists of the older day. More tax money reaches Mexico City to-day from oil alone than Diaz had from every source at his command--while, save for the oil fields, Mexico is to-day a desert waste. It is no wonder, then, that the nation can and does buy herself honors and praise in the world outside, that she considers it criminal that she cannot buy recognition, cannot force aid and trade and gold to flow to her. Is she not wealthy and can she not buy pages of advertising and the services of hundreds of propagandists of every type known to the trade? Gold is here and more gold she expects to bring to her through other channels than her own genuine advancement. She is back again in the days of the bonanza mines, when wealth went to caprice and labor and industry meant nothing. And so she is killing the golden goose, just as she killed it long ago under the Spaniards, by forcing it to lay and lay and lay, till at the height of its productivity it is trembling to its death. Destructive legislation, the bitter threat of its confiscation, the continuing theft of vast sums in exchange for the privilege of struggling against these laws and threats--these are striking down the golden bird. To-day that goose is dying, and all Mexico seeks is to bring in, somehow, another goose to feed her hungry office-holders. She is willing that it shall be a relatively tame domestic goose, if only it will lay the golden eggs of foreign investment, trade, commerce--she would gladly go back to the relatively mild, but sure, wealth of the time of Diaz.